ANGERED by negative portrayals of the conflict in Iraq, Bruce Willis, the Hollywood star, is to make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.

It will be based on the exploits of the heavily decorated members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, which has spent the past year battling insurgents in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

Willis attended Deuce Four’s homecoming ball this month in Seattle, Washington, where the soldiers are on leave, along with Stephen Eads, the producer of Armageddon and The Sixth Sense.

The 50-year-old actor said that he was in talks about a film of “these guys who do what they are asked to for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom”.

Unlike many Hollywood stars Willis supports the war and recently offered a $1m (about £583,000) bounty for the capture of any of Al-Qaeda’s most wanted leaders such as Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri or Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, its commander in Iraq. Willis visited the war zone with his rock and blues band, the Accelerators, in 2003.

“I am baffled to understand why the things I saw happening in Iraq are not being reported,” he told MSNBC, the American news channel.

He is expected to base the film on the writings of the independent blogger Michael Yon, a former special forces green beret who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their heroics.

Yon was at the soldiers’ ball with Willis, who got to know him through his internet war reports on www.michaelyon.blogspot.com. “What he is doing is something the American media and maybe the world media isn’t doing,” the actor said, “and that’s telling the truth about what’s happening in the war in Iraq.”

Willis is likely to take on the role of the unit’s commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Erik Kurilla, 39, a Bruce Willis lookalike with a chest full of medals, more hair than Willis and a glamorous blonde wife.

He was injured in August after being shot three times by insurgents “in front of my eyes”, Yon recorded in his blog: “He continued to direct his men until a medic gave him morphine and the men took him away.”

Kurilla now has a titanium plate in his leg. He met Willis at the ball and said that his men were “very excited and appreciative that he was there”. ”

Deuce Four has a chequered history. For decades it was a segregated black unit commanded by a white officer. It was disbanded in 1951 but veterans felt hurt that its past was considered to be a stain on the army and it was revived in the mid-1990s.

When the battalion arrived in Mosul in November last year the city was under threat from insurgents. “We faced very heavy fighting for about three months,” Kurilla recalled. “Every patrol was making contact with enemy forces. We would hit them where they slept, where they worked and where they ate.”

Today the picture was very different, he said. “I have watched a city that was in absolute chaos turn into one that has a viable Iraqi security force, which is taking the lead in fighting the terrorists.”

Yon, 41, went to Iraq after a friend from high school, Scott Helveston, a former navy Seal, was hanged from a bridge in Falluja in an incident that shocked the world. Yon had never blogged before but was the author of Danger Close, a book about his experience as a green beret when he killed a man in a bar-room brawl. He was charged with murder and acquitted on the grounds of self-defence.

“When I landed in Baghdad I was immediately struck by how much of a war zone it was,” Yon said. “Explosions were going off constantly. It was full-on.”

His first experience of Mosul was worse: “I got attacked on my first mission. One of our vehicles got hit with a car bomb and three guys were killed.”

In May, Yon took a photograph of a soldier from the Deuce Four cradling a little Iraqi girl who had been fatally wounded by a suicide bomber. He sensed that the inhabitants of Mosul were turning against the insurgents. “People began to realise that all the insurgents ever did was break things and kill people,” he said. “It started to switch from a firefight to an intelligence war. People started to talk more to us. They would pull us over and give us tips.”

The Iraqi security forces began to take pride in their work, Yon added: “These guys were getting slaughtered but they continued to volunteer and fight. It’s very dangerous now to be a terrorist in Mosul. They’re still out there but it’s not like it was.”

Willis said it would be wrong for Americans to give up on Iraq just as progress is being made. “The Iraqi people want to live in a world where they can move from their homes to the market and not have to fear being killed,” he said. “I mean, doesn’t everybody want that?”

Bruce Willis should get Timmy Russert or another lefty propagandist to sign onto a part in this film. They could play the part of a lying journalist, who gets killed off by the movies end. A well deserved and most fitting outcome.

That is so cool that Bruce Willis is taking on this project. It would not surprise me to find out that Mr. Willis would consider it an honor to play the part of LTC Kurilla. Michael Yon's writing is amazing stuff and if you go back to the beginning and read forward, the transformation you will see makes you happy and angry at the same time; happy at the success of the effort, and livid that we hear none of this in the MSM.

This movie has all the elements that made "Passion of the Christ" so successful for Mel Gibson. The majority of Americans are at odds with Hollywood when it comes to politics, the Iraq war, and religion. Hollywood refuses to give us what we want - a patriotic war movie with a Rambo-like hero and a pro-America theme. If Bruce Willis produces a good movie, I expect ticket sales to rival Gibson's "Passion".

I hope he just goes ahead and makes it, regardless. But I wouldn't be surprised that, if he does have the courage to do it, other more timid Hollywood types might actually be emboldened to come out and support him. There have got to be some others who aren't totally left-wing bonkers, and maybe he'll encouarge them.

As well as a Mega-Hit in the making.....Bruce gets it; America loves its' military men and women.....of course Hollywierd will be completely caught off guard by the films success....they will never get it.....

As well as a Mega-Hit in the making.....Bruce gets it; America loves its' military men and women.....of course Hollywierd will be completely caught off guard by the films success....they will never get it.....

Willis has been around long enough that he will still get in good movies. Maybe not huge money makers, but he will always be one of the go to guys for people like Rodriguez and Tarantino who like to make movies for guys who like movies.

29
posted on 11/27/2005 10:08:43 AM PST
by Mr. Blonde
(You know, Happy Time Harry, just being around you kinda makes me want to die.)

An excellent point, his career and reputation as a consistent moneymaker are already well established. Same goes for folks like Mel Gibson. But for a newcomer to the industry to espouse conservative ideals would be a career ender for sure.

I believe his production company is called Cheyene. If you haven't seen his "Tears of the Sun", rent it. Excellent, keep you on the edge of the seat movie about folks in Africa killing their fellow Africans who don't go to the "right church".

If this film turns into a box office smash, as it well may, just IMAGINE how twisted the Hollywood elites will be. Their box office receipts are at an all time low and sinking fast due to their anti America, anti culture bias. America is sick of these bastards and the success of "The Passion of the Christ" proves it. No distributor would handle the film so Mel Gibson handled it himself and the movie earned over $600 MILLION dollars.

This nation is about 80% Christian and is sick of being "blamed" for what they believe. We also mostly realize the seriousness of the war on terror and the consequences of not winning. Finally, Americans hate to lose but fighting the good fight and losing is one thing but refusing to fight, as the liberals advocate is quite another. If a coward dies a thousand deaths then how in the world can these left wing losers bear to look at themselves in the mirror?

The libs know full well that the war is succeeding and they are desperate to stop it if they can. Nothing would be worse for them then Iraq settling down and becoming a stable democracy. This is why they so badly want the troops pulled now. The best news the libs can get is the collapse of our effort in Iraq.

As the saying goes, "What's good for America is bad for the Democrats and what's bad for the democrats is good for America"

Military games have to make huge amounts of money. There have to be at least 50 Tom Clancy games out there. I think part of the reason is these games are squad based and with things like X Box live they are a lot more fun to play. You don't even have to actually see your friends to play with them now.

47
posted on 11/27/2005 10:44:14 AM PST
by Mr. Blonde
(You know, Happy Time Harry, just being around you kinda makes me want to die.)

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